Wednesday, 16 March 2016

Friends of a private school boy who overdosed on drugs did not call the emergency services as they were scared police would find child sex abuse images and drugs, a court has heard.
Morgan Huelin, a pupil at Victoria College, Jersey, died after a house party on the island last July.
It is alleged the 16-year-old became unwell after taking drugs at a party in the Trinity district.
LSD, MDMA, class C drug etizolam and drugs paraphernalia were found on the premises.
Four indecent images of children were also found at the property. The drugs and child sex abuse images belonged to ‘Defendant One’, the Crown alleges.
The defendants, who are aged between 16 and 17 and cannot be named for legal reasons, deny perverting the course of justice.
Defendant One also denies charges relating to drugs and possessing indecent images.
Morgan became intoxicated to the point of “struggling to walk” and felt unwell in the night after taking at least four different drugs, Jersey Youth Court heard.
A post-mortem found evidence of painkiller morphine, etizolam and prescription drugs promethazine and codeine in Morgan’s body.
However, his four friends, also at the property, were not worried as “he had been like this before", according to a witness.
The witness said Morgan stayed in the garage while the friends continued partying in a hot tub, and that he checked on Morgan before he left the house.
“I tapped him and asked if he was okay and I got a response that you would expect from someone whose sleep had been disturbed," he said.
"It was not audible words, but a grunt. I remember moving his shoulder so I could see his chest so I could see if he was breathing."
Advocate Howard Sharp told the court that ‘Defendant One’ was next into the garage and saw Morgan’s condition had deteriorated.
"Morgan was lying on the garage floor," Advocate Sharp told the court.
"He was unconscious. There was blood and saliva coming out of his mouth. His airway was blocked. He either had a very weak pulse or no discernible pulse at all. Morgan's condition was critical, and obviously so.
"An ambulance was urgently required. [Defendant One] decided not to call the emergency services.
"We say that he feared, quite correctly, that calling an ambulance would trigger a chain of events that would result in the police attending the home and searching the property.
"It was decided to move Morgan far away from the home so that the police would not come there."
Advocate Sharp said the other four defendants then became involved after Defendant One woke them up.
"On seeing him unconscious in the garage, and at [Defendant One's] suggestion, they all agreed to carry Morgan out onto the road. They managed to move him 160 metres."
The boys were seen on the road by dog walker Carly Cudlipp.
She told the court the boys refused her offers of help but she felt unable to walk away.
She called an ambulance at around 9.23am.
"Morgan was lying on the ground perfectly still, it looked as though he had a fit or something,” she said.
"[Morgan] was lying with a cushion and a blanket of sorts. There was some desire to make him comfortable but no desire to get help,” the BBC reported.
Another witness who arrived on the scene, jogger Linda Allo, said she rubbed Morgan’s back because she knew he was very ill.
An ambulance took Morgan to hospital just after 9.30am, but he later suffered cardiac arrest and was pronounced dead.
Paramedic Andrew Langlois said: "There was something wrong about the whole scene really."
In a police statement taken on the day, one of the defendants said they had been trying to call 999 on a locked phone, but it would not work, the BBC reported.
Advocate Sharp said the court had to decide if and why Morgan’s body was moved.
He added: "We say that the evidence suggests they did move him. It is difficult to see what dispute there would be to that.
"Why did these five defendants choose to move unconscious Morgan Huelin 160 metres up the road?”
The trial continues.